


Stormchaser

by floraltohru



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hatsuharu's meltdown, Machi's imperfection thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floraltohru/pseuds/floraltohru
Summary: Machi watches Hatsuharu's rampage and seeks him out in the aftermath.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51





	Stormchaser

**Author's Note:**

> Lately I've been intrigued by the idea I've seen floating around of Machi and Hatsuharu interacting, since they're in the same class. So, here it is.

If Machi Kuragi is a stormchaser, Hatsuharu Sohma is a hurricane. 

He starts slow at first, a gentle rain pelting against the shore. He pulls out a notebook. He opens it up. He tears out pages, one by one, their perforated pieces dropping to the floor like so many snowflakes. 

Machi imagines what it would feel like to reach out and run a finger along the jagged edges left in the notebook, to feel the crinkled paper under her hands. 

The wind picks up. 

Hatsuharu saunters to the bookshelf in the back of the room. Machi watches the teacher watching him, cautious, apprehensive. Like she’s monitoring a wild animal, making sure it doesn’t get too close.

The teacher doesn’t say anything, though. Not until Hatsuharu picks up one of the books and pitches it at the wall, narrowly missing one of the girls. The girl shrieks, picking her backpack up off the floor and holding it up in front of her face. 

“Hallway, now!” the teacher says, her hands on her hips as she addresses him. 

Locking eyes with her, Hatsuharu pitches another book at the wall, this one ruffling the hair of another first-year boy. 

“Hatsuharu Sohma!” she cries. The classroom descends into chaos. 

Unfazed, he tips over the whole shelf. Machi watches the books spilling out, some of them flipped open on the classroom floor like disemboweled warriors. 

The gale is beating against the coast in earnest now. 

He grabs an overturned pencil cup and starts to snap them in half, firing off the pieces like tiny projectiles. The other students start to swarm in earnest, shielding their eyes from errant wooden missiles as they leave the room to huddle in the hallway. Machi is still enraptured, not even thinking to move until another girl grabs her arm and yanks her through the door. The blonde Sohma - Momiji, if Machi is remembering right from that group project last month - takes off down the hall. 

Machi gets shoved to the back of the pack, unable to see into the room over the other students rubbernecking Hatsuharu’s meltdown. She can still hear it though. A shiver runs down her spine at the sound of a classroom chair shattering the perfectly polished windows. The other students murmur over the din, gasping every time he kicks over another desk. 

She’s not surprised to see Yuki and Hatsuharu’s other cousins storming the hallway. There’s something strange about that family, and it does seem that the student council president ends up cleaning up their messes more often than not. Admittedly, she’s a little impressed when Yuki takes command of the situation, telling the teacher and the rest of the class to stand back. Everyone else seems to think he’s princely and commanding; Machi kind of thinks he just looks tired. 

The Sohmas huddle in the classroom, speaking mostly in hushed tones, but occasionally shouting at each other. And from the sounds of it, throwing the odd punch or two. 

And Machi thought her family drama was obnoxious. 

The other students and her teacher hush, trying to hear what the Sohmas are saying to each other; Machi fiddles with a loose thread on her shirt. She has no interest in eavesdropping on someone else’s private business. 

After a few moments of their squabbling, another teacher strides past Machi and her class with a bucket. She’s barely in the room before she dumps water over Hatsuharu and the redheaded cousin - Kyo, Machi thinks - before sending them all on their way. Machi only hopes she can be that cool someday, walking into someone else’s classroom to break up a fight with a water bucket and breezing away without breaking a sweat. 

The classroom is desolate; a fallout zone. 

The desks have all been tipped over on their sides, and glass crunches under her shoes mellifluously when Machi and the other students come back in to collect their supplies. The spines on some of the textbooks have cracked, and a couple ill-fated pens leak ink onto the floor. 

She picks up a piece of broken pencil, pressing the shattered end into her palm, observing its jagged unevenness. 

There are enough girls busybodying around the classroom in the aftermath of the Great Sohma Rampage that no one notices when Machi slips away. 

“Hi,” she says, a little out of breath. She had checked three separate abandoned stairwells and a half-dozen empty classrooms before finding him here, on the steps outside one of the lesser-used entrances.

“Hi.” He studies Machi, but doesn’t seem surprised to find her panting in front of him, even though they’ve never really spoken. “Machi, right?” 

Machi nods, sitting down next to him on the steps. She worries at the loose thread on her shirt. 

This Hatsuharu seems downright tranquil compared to the guy who trashed their classroom. 

The strand snaps, finally, but leaves a small hole in the hem. Maybe she’ll stitch it up with that pretty gold thread she bought on a whim when she and Kakeru went out last week. 

“Do you get angry a lot?” Machi asks finally. 

He shrugs. “I don’t think so. Not any more than anyone else, I don’t think.” She nods. When she doesn’t respond, he adds, “I think I’m just a little louder about it than other people.” 

“I think that’s okay.”

“Do you?” 

“Better than keeping it bottled up.” 

“Maybe next time I won’t trash our classroom.”

“I don’t mind,” she says, and for half a second she’s worried that the words have spilled out too quickly, and that he’s going to think she’s some kind of wild destructionist. 

But then Hatsuharu laughs, just a little. “Yeah, well, you might be the only one. I think Yuki is going to personally kick my ass.” 

“He’s not very intimidating,” Machi says, blasé.

And then he laughs a little more. “You’re right, he’s pretty harmless.” 

“I should go,” Machi says. “I just wanted to say hello. And that you shouldn’t worry too much about the classroom.”

“I need to go apologize to my cousins, anyway,” Hatsuharu says. “And Tohru, probably. Thanks for talking.” He stands, leisurely, and pats Machi on the head before disappearing into the school. 

Machi always did enjoy the rain. 

When she returns to the classroom at the end of the day, the cleaning fairies have struck and there’s almost no trace of the carnage from hours before. The desks are back in order, the books are lined up like dutiful soldiers on the bookshelf, and the assorted writing utensils have all found their way back to their respective homes. The glass has been swept up off the floor, but the snarled edges of the window remain. 

Machi reaches out, pressing her fingertip gently to one of the shards.

She lets the blood run down her hand, and watches it drip onto the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> @floraltohru on tumblr


End file.
